How the U.S.-Iran standoff looks from Israel

The upheaval in the Arab world has damaged Israel’s strategic environment. Its peace treaty with Egypt, a pillar of national security for more than three decades, is in question. More important, the events in the Arab world have deflected attention from Israel’s most feared scenario, a nuclear Iran, playing into the Iranian strategy to buy time in order to present the world with a nuclear fait accompli. Israel’s leaders fear that the international response is now unlikely to impact Iranian polic

Feb. 20, 2012

Santorum’s surge raises cheers from Camp Obama

“The one who can beat Obama: Rick Santorum,” the television commercial proclaims. That boast brings cheers from two quarters: the faithful followers of the conservative Republican presidential candidate, and the Democratic president’s political strategists. The former Pennsylvania senator is on fire in the Republican contest, threatening the front-runner, Mitt Romney, in the critical Michigan primary next week and nationally. Still, President Barack Obama’s campaign, the super-PACs supporting it

Feb. 20, 2012

Simple, realistic solution to fixing the U.S. economy

Few would deny that the U.S. economy is badly damaged or that the party with the more plausible plan for fixing it is likely to win the coming election. Yet neither has proposed a plan that realists can believe in. While Republicans advocate yet more tax cuts and deregulation, Democrats propose further stimulus and deficit spending. Both are futile.Tax cuts will fail because they reduce government revenue, thereby necessitating additional layoffs at the state and local levels among police, firef

Feb. 19, 2012

The case for publicly owned Internet service

In cities and towns across the U.S., a familiar story is replaying itself: Powerful companies are preventing local governments from providing an essential service to their citizens. More than 100 years ago, it was electricity. Today, it is the public provision of communications services. The Georgia legislature is currently considering a bill that would effectively make it impossible for any city in the state to provide for high-speed Internet access networks ― even in areas in which the private

Feb. 19, 2012

How should a ‘hate crime’ be defined?

Further investigation of a recent attack in Philadelphia might justify the filing of hate-crime charges against teenagers who sparked the melee.On a Saturday night two weekends ago, a Penn senior named David Goldman was in the back of a cab, en route to a date. The problem came when the car approached 15th Street.“I was in the backseat, looking out of my window, which was rolled down, and then ― bam! A strong punch came barreling through the window and hit me squarely in the jaw,” he wrote in th

Feb. 17, 2012

Sex education and the age-old issue of teen pregnancy

Valentine’s Day should be an occasion to celebrate love and compassion. But in Thailand, this occasion is considered by some adults as a dreadful time when many young and underage girls become pregnant. The Police Department, for instance, has enforced a 10 p.m. curfew for people aged below 18 on Valentine’s Day. At the same time, the Public Health Ministry has spent 60 million baht to buy 60 million condoms for young lovers this week.These actions, the agencies claim, are meant to protect our t

Feb. 17, 2012

Makiyo case gives no right to waiver in xenophobia fight

Last week featured almost hourly television news updates on a case involving a semi-celebrity and her friend who have now been charged by prosecutors for the brutal beating of a taxi driver on Feb. 2. The media can’t seem to help itself and ― like a binge eater ― is now in the process of purging with more than one newspaper or media commentator coming out to denounce the sensationalist coverage and call for restraint. The swarm of media piranhas is somewhat understandable; after all, this case h

Feb. 17, 2012

Use mayoral poll outcome to advance Futenma issue

The outcome of Sunday’s mayoral election in Ginowan, Okinawa Prefecture, must serve as a springboard to ensure the U.S. Marine Corps’ Futenma Air Station is relocated to the Henoko district of Nago in the prefecture.Atsushi Sakima, a conservative candidate and a former Liberal Democratic Party member of the Okinawa Prefectural Assembly, was elected to his first term as mayor of Ginowan when he defeated Yoichi Iha, a former mayor and a progressive candidate.During the campaign, Sakima insisted th

Feb. 17, 2012

Thailand’s troubles show democracy’s shaky future

Recently in Bangkok, I found myself wandering through the strange but distinctive arena for one of Asia’s latest conflicts: CentralWorld, supposedly the biggest shopping mall in Southeast Asia. Protesters supporting Thaksin Shinawatra, Thailand’s populist ex-prime minister, had set up base camp in the mall’s plaza in May 2010. During a widely covered clash with security forces, they had set the building on fire, destroying much of it. The newly renovated mall ― and the traffic outside, restored

Feb. 16, 2012

No easy way to halt carnage in Syria

In 1982, I interviewed Syrian Information Minister Ahmed Iskander in Damascus, shortly after the regime had killed at least 10,000 people in the city of Hama.On his office wall hung a painting of an old Hama neighborhood with one of the waterwheels for which the city was famous. “That is our lovely city of Hama,” he told me calmly. “It’s perfectly peaceful. You should visit it someday.”He knew that I knew this neighborhood had been leveled to the ground.Back then, under the regime of Hafez al-As

Feb. 16, 2012